Luna of Rogues - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

The camp was spread across two hillsides. Tents covered the slopes like a forest of incredibly colourful trees. There were places where they had been pitched in neat, orderly rows — that would be the packlings — with larger pavilions for eating and cooking at every corner. And there were places were the tents clustered in groups of half a dozen with cookfires in the centre — Team Rogue. Each cluster was a raiding team, and there were seven of them.
The lifeblood of the colourful forest was people (men, mostly) who flooded along every path, filled every space, and soaked the afternoon air with noise. Hundreds and hundreds of unwashed bodies packed into a campsite which had clearly outgrown its purpose. I could actually feel my nose recoiling.
To our left, in a marked clearing which was probably meant for training, about a hundred of those unwashed bodies were playing a highly unorthodox game of rugby. Firstly, there were about three times more players than there should have been. Secondly, one of the teams was half the size of the other. And, lastly, nobody seemed to be enforcing any rules, so there was a lot of punching going on.
I glanced at my brother and saw his eyes lit up. He liked rugby. Of course he liked rugby. He was young and violent, he was good at knocking people over, and he was Welsh. There were regular games in the summer raiding camps. Sometimes I would even join in — always as scrum half, because I was too tiny to play anything else.
"Skye..." he began, the start of a request if I ever heard one.
"No," I sighed. "We'll find Jace first."
His reply was harrumph. "I mean, I think we'd better investigate. Don't it look odd to you? Flockies against rogues?"
What, now? They wouldn't be so stupid ... would they? I squinted at the individual players, looking for a familiar face. It wasn't long before I found some. Ryker and Emmett and another score of my raiders were playing for the smaller team, and Zach-freaking-Lloyd, the Shadowless Alpha, appeared to be captaining the other.
My mood soured. "What a creative way to get someone killed."
"Dammit," Rhys muttered. "Lethal or not, it looks like a decent bloody game."
I shook my head in fond disgust, and then I dragged him further into the camp. There weren't any signposts, and every tent looked identical, so I wasn't entirely sure how I was supposed to find Jace. I didn't want to link him, given his talent for leaching minds. After ten minutes of aimless wandering, I had to confront the only option left to me: human interaction.
I hadn't wanted to draw attention to myself, hadn't wanted anyone to mark my face before I had a good long chat with Jace, but there no helping it. I caught the shoulder of a passing teenager with the New Dawn scent and twisted him to face me.
"Where's Jace?" I demanded.
A spotty, pale face stared back at me. "Where's who?"
I felt a sigh rising in my chest and swallowed it. "Jace Lloyd. He's your Alpha. I don't suppose you've heard of him?"
"Oh," he exclaimed. "Thought you said Chase."
I let out an impatient growl.
Inevitably, the kid's confusion morphed into rough entitlement. Rogue pups knew that insolence would be rewarded with a clout, but packlings were far too civilised to teach that manner of respect. "Who's asking?"
A shadow fell over the boy, and I knew Rhys was edging closer. Well, good. I didn't appreciate little kids trying to play tough guy. But to top that, I was in a sour mood — a combination of being separated from my mate and the throbbing headache which had been plaguing me since I'd got my spine cracked.
"I am," I told him in an overly pleasant voice.
Something must have spooked the cheek out of him, because he glanced at Rhys, then at the ground, then back at me. "Big khaki tent on the hilltop. You can't miss it."
"Thank you. Word of advice — leave your manners somewhere safe," I told him, "so you can find them a bit quicker next time."
I let go of his shoulder and he stumbled away. I had only bullied him because he had taken one whiff of our scents and decided he could be rude to us. Rogues were obviously second-class citizens. He might be low in pack ranking, but we were rock-freaking-bottom.
Trekking up the hill was difficult. The snow had melted beneath so many boots, and that had turned the ground to mud. The original line of the path was a stream, the surrounding ground was impassably slippery, and we had to navigate between the few surviving tufts of grass. Someone had fastened a knotted rope to a tree, but it was so filthy that I tried to manage without.
At least the teenager had been telling the truth. The crest of the hill was crowned with a sealed khaki pavilion. It was huge, it was unmistakable, and sat outside were a pair of packlings whom I recognised in a heartbeat.
"Bradley, Ryan," I hollered cheerfully. "Good to see you!"
Of course, the last and only time we had met, they had tried to kill me, and I had tried to singe their faces off. And, as far as I recalled, Rhys had been fairly eager to give them both a beating, so that might explain why he was grinning behind me.
I was met with closed faces and narrowed eyes. "What the hell do you want?"
"An audience with your esteemed leader, if it ain't too much trouble."
"It is, actually," Ryan drawled. "He's busy, so the both of you can sod off."
With a smile sharper than a razor, I was just about to sidestep him and go in anyway when the tent flap opened and a wary face appeared. The dark hair was not in its usual state of tidiness, and the blue eyes were lined with dark circles, but Jace looked as composed as ever.
"Come in — sit down. This might take some time."
I tried not to look too smug, because I was sure the packlings wanted to punch me enough as it was. Jace vanished into the interior, and the men took grudging steps out of the way as I went to follow him. Rhys kept his feet planted and that provocative grin on his face.
"Later, little brother," I called over my shoulder, knowing full well that he wouldn't want to leave me alone with Jace Lloyd if he could help it. I was quickly proved right.
The interior of the tent was far cosier than I had been expecting. It was full of useless luxuries: proper wooden chairs and a map table, a gas heater, a nice woolly rug and a double camp bed. I took one whiff and realised that his mate was sharing it with him, and suddenly everything made perfect sense.
I picked out the biggest chair, assumed it was Jace's, and made myself comfortable. Rhys plopped himself down beside me, and Jace pulled up a chair opposite.
He looked the pair of us up and down — taking in the bloodstains, the copious bruises, the soot, and the greasy hair. I imagined we looked like we'd just gone a dozen rounds with a block of concrete, but all the Alpha said was, "You're late."
That would have made me lose my temper on a good day. Under the circumstances, I was lucky to avoid shifting there and then. If it had been anyone else, I would have assumed they were joking, but it was Jace, and his sense of humour was buried in an unmarked grave if it had ever existed at all.
"We're late?" I spluttered furiously. "We're late? We've been to hell and back saving your flockie friends, and that's all you've got to say?"
"It's true. Even if you were moving at a slow pace, accounting for several delays and general misfortune, you should have arrived yesterday."
Rhys snorted. "Four of us freed Ember. You should be kissing our asses, not bitching."
"Yes, I heard about Ember. It was a shame you didn't get around to Lowland Pack, but Mr Fletcher assures me that he can make up for that."
"Shame, is it?" I put my boots on a table with more force than strictly necessary and crossed them. "What've you been doing since the packmeet? Walking across the Silverstones and building this piss-poor excuse for a camp?"
"It's bloody awful," Rhys assured him, nodding along.
"And then you went and threw the world's most dangerous game of rugby for good measure," I added before Jace could open his mouth. He could run circles around us with that silver tongue all day, so I wasn't going to leave him any room to manoeuvre.
"That is to stop our army tearing itself apart," Jace said with a hint of annoyance.
"So you decided to diffuse tension," I retorted, "by playing a sport which lets you kick people if they don't move fast enough?"
Unconcerned and unconvinced, his lips twitched into a smirk. "Anything to distract them, at this point. There have been hourly fights since the rogues arrived, and your rep has been particularly uncooperative."
"Ollie?" I asked, more than a little surprised. His cooperation skills exceeded my own.
"No, the older bastard. He's been encouraging the fighting. Participating, even. What, exactly, possessed you to leave him in charge?"
Emmett, I guessed. It was a description that could fit most, if not all, of my raiders, but it had been Emmett on that rugby pitch. Besides, the raiders were usually inclined to listen to Ollie. But the Llyn rogues were wildcards.
"It ain't like there's a magical baton to pass around," I snorted. "I can tell people to listen to Ollie, but they're more likely to listen to whoever talks the loudest."
"Rhodric left you in charge," he pointed out insistently.
I shrugged my exasperation. "Yeah, well, Rhodric can say jump and they all leap for the bloody moon. If I say jump, they want a damn good reason why."
I didn't have to look at Rhys to know he was grinning. And Jace didn't fail to notice. He turned to my brother next. "And you?"
The grin was interrupted by a flash of alarm. "No idea. Never tried."
Jace didn't leave it there, so he must have been really desperate. "If I sent you to stop the rugby match, and you asked the troublemakers to give it a rest, would they listen?"
He must have been desperate indeed to resort to this. Yes, obviously they would. I wouldn't ever tell Jace that, but there was no question that Rhys could stop the fights if he wanted. So could I, to be honest, but that would cost me a chunk of the influence I needed to keep the various raiding teams under my control.
"You can't send me anywhere," he said, just to be difficult.
"If Skye sent you," Jace corrected himself with an eye roll. Rhys's answer was a weary shrug, then the both of them were looking at me, waiting for the order. Hell if I was going to give it.
"We haven't slept in days," I told him curtly. "You can go yourself."
Jace ran a hand through his hair. He seemed to have aged ten years trying to keep the army in one piece. "Very helpful. Don't suppose you have any bright ideas about how we're going to beat the feral army while we're at it?"
"Not yet. What are the numbers?"
He paused, and I could practically see the numbers dancing behind his eyes as he did the addition. "Two hundred and thirteen. Well — fifteen with the two of you."
Two hundred and thirteen fighters against more than three hundred rabid, amoral ferals. I wouldn't have felt certain of winning if we had the advantage of numbers. Without it, I wasn't even sure we could make a dent. None of that could be admitted to Jace, naturally.
I scratched my neck as I thought about it. "Okay, well, there's a way, but it requires three tonnes of grenades and a small fleet of helicopters."
He didn't take my idea seriously. He blinked at me once, dismissive and unimpressed, like I was a child overstepping my boundaries. I fought the grin creeping across my lips and tried again.
"Or we could nuke 'em," I suggested. "You're probably rich enough to afford one."
Jace's mouth twisted into a scowl.
"Or we could report them," Rhys piped up. He knew exactly what game I was playing, and he wanted in. "There's a hotline and everything. One phone call, then we sit back and let the army deal with the bastards. And if we get exposed in the process, well ... it's better than dying."
"Or ... we all go away to another country. The states, maybe. Carve ourselves out a nice patch of territory on the east coast. It might take them a few years to figure out where we went, another few to follow — I don't see the lot of them buying plane tickets."
"Do you think this is a game?" Jace snapped suddenly. A low growl slipped out of him — the first I'd ever heard from his wolf. "Do you think this is funny?"
I didn't, but I started laughing anyway, in a way I hadn't laughed in days, because it might have taken a hundred times as long as any other Alpha, but I had finally managed to wind him up. Rhys just grinned like a Cheshire cat. It was an exhausted, weary shadow of laughter.
Within ten seconds of our amusement, Jace had blinked his wolf out of his eyes and regained his composure, which only made me laugh harder. He leant back and waited with a sort of forced patience for me to catch my breath.
"I don't have a plan, Jace," I said eventually. "But give me a good night's sleep and some time and I'll have one soon enough."
"I'm glad to hear it," he told me in a voice as dry as a desert. "I'll have someone fetch you after breakfast."
I stood up, knocking a few maps from the table in the process, and stretched out my arms, rolling my shoulder blades. "Don't you dare. I'll come see you when I'm good and ready."
"Or even better, you could get off your arse for once and come to us," Rhys suggested. He was on his feet by then, and we left without saying goodbye, because it wasn't like we were friends or anything.
Whatever I had told Jace, I wasn't heading to bed, because there was a task far more important than sleep waiting for me to drum up some courage. It would have to be now. It would be so much worse if he had to come looking for an explanation.
"We have to find Aaron," I told my brother reluctantly.
"Shit." Rhys winced. "There's a conversation I'm not looking forward to."
But it was unavoidable, so we started asking around and following the trail of vague hints to the east side of the camp, where Aaron's raiders seemed to be lurking. Word must gotten around because, in the end, he found us outside one of the food tents. Connor was standing behind him, and I found myself nodding a greeting at him.
Aaron had been injured by the Ferals — that much was made obvious by a bloodied bandage which poked out from his collar. And seeing as it hadn't healed by now ... well, it must have been bad. Right now, that seemed to be the least of his problems. His dark hair was sticking up like he had been running a hand through it, and the circles under his eyes were bigger than mine.
"Where the hell is my brother?"
So he had already been told that Owen hadn't arrived with us. I wasn't surprised, but it didn't exactly make my job any easier.
"Aaron," I started cautiously, "there ain't no good way to say this."
He grimaced, setting his jaw in a hard line. He knew. Somewhere deep down, he knew already and was desperately hoping he was wrong. "Spit it out, Skye."
A cold hand squeezed my heart, but I managed to get the words out, "Owen was turned when he was looking for us. He passed a little while after. I'm sorry."
There wasn't an ounce of surprise on that face. His wolf, though... I could feel his wolf's grief and frustration drowning my own mind, and we weren't even closely linked. Connor wore his misery openly, his eyes downcast and his mouth twisted.
"How?" Aaron demanded.
"Quickly and quietly," Rhys offered. "And fighting. Not a bad way to go."
"Not bad at all," he agreed.
"Was it one of you or a feral in the end?"
"One of us," he admitted carefully.
Aaron shifted his weight. "Good. Good — that we took care of our own. The ferals aren't going to claim any more lives."
I noticed, gratefully, that he didn't ask which of us. He didn't demand that. I was having a hard time looking him in the eye as it was.
"Did you bury him?" he asked next, and we both nodded. "I'll be looking for that site as soon as this is over, so you'd best hope you remember where it is."
"We remember," Rhys assured him.
He acknowledged that with the barest jerk of his head. "And Sophie?"
I had never seen him speak to the girl, and yet he found the strength to give a shit about her right there and then. Maybe he just wanted to know that Owen had died for something.
"She survived that," I sighed. "But a feral killed her yesterday."
"I thought they'd be safer with you," Aaron muttered. I wasn't sure he had meant to say it aloud. "I really thought..."
"We all made mistakes that day," Rhys told him steadily. "Yours wasn't the worst of them."
I blinked at him in surprise, because that was dangerously close to comforting, and that was against the rules. The ingrained, fundamental rules among raiders. Don't get too close. The various raiding groups ran in parallel lines – headed in the same direction but firmly separate, and my brother had just made a dangerous swerve.
"Yeah, well..." A muscle popped in the side of Aaron's jaw. He just shook his head, ending the conversation with, "I guess you owe me ten quid, Rhys."
Then he left with Connor trailing at his heels. I had been physically exhausted a moment ago, but now it was mental and emotional weariness nagging at me, begging for some sort of reprieve. I was tired of being miserable, and I was tired of the people around me dying. Sleep should have been the next priority, but there was still Jace's mess to clean up.
"And now the rugby," I muttered joylessly.
Rhys caught the tone, and he slung an arm around my shoulder and squeezed.
"Go to bed, Skye," he laughed. "I've got this."
That smug note to his voice... I raised an eyebrow. "You have a plan?"
"Mix the teams. I'll have a quiet word with Emmett afterwards."
Trust him to find a way to keep the game going. Simply stopping it — no, unthinkable. He needed to be able to join in, and as long as I got some packling-rogue team-building out of the equation, I didn't have an issue with that.
"You're too tired to play," I told him. "Change the teams and then march your ass straight to bed."
"Of course," he said dutifully, but the words stank of insolence. I didn't push any further. It was hardly my business if he wanted to wear himself out. He wasn't injured, there were no stitches left to rip, and if the ferals decided to attack tomorrow, we would die, tired or not.
So I grinned, simultaneously grudging and conspiratorial. "Just make sure you kick their asses, okay?"
Rhys eyed me, this time without any of the bullshit meekness. "Of course, Skye."
And he disappeared into the throng of packlings heading downhill, and I reached into the mind-link for Ollie, knowing he'd be around the camp somewhere. "Hey, Oll. Is there somewhere I can sleep in this mess? I'm outside Jace's tent."
Ollie as usual, wasted no time in following the order. It was for this reason I had picked him as my second in command. "Twenty feet west, dark blue. I had it set up for you. And ... Skye?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're okay," Ollie mumbled before cutting the link, leaving me smiling.
I found the tent easily enough. There were two camp beds and an airbed between them. I peeled off my coat and outer layers, kicked off my boots, and fell asleep warm for the first time in days. There weren't any dreams or nightmares, just seamless, overdue rest.
By the time I woke up, Rhys had come in and passed out on the other bed. It must have been the next day, because the morning sun was streaming through the fabric, half blinding me. And the tent door was open, and there was someone standing in the entrance. Someone with dark-brown hair and a sheepish expression.
"Sorry — didn't mean to wake you," he whispered.
As if I cared. As if sleep was more important than my mate.
Groggy and weary as I was, I squirmed free of the sleeping bag and threw my arms around him, breathing in that familiar scent. One day. It didn't sound like long, but it could have been a lifetime of separation as far as my wolf concerned. He took most of my weight, lifting me for a moment, and with my head resting on his shoulder, I could finally see that he wasn't alone.
Fion was smiling at me. Not in her usual mischievous way, but rather a quiet, tired acknowledgement of my presence. And then she stepped forwards to wrap her arms around me. She was hugging Leo, too, inadvertently, but my wolf couldn't have cared less.
Of course we had woken Rhys, and he just about managed to sit up in bed before Fion had crossed the tent and wrapped him in a hug, too. It only took one glimpse of his face to see that he looked properly happy for the first time in days.
"You're both alive," she observed happily.
With my back pressed against Leo's chest and his arms around my waist, I grinned my agreement. "You sound surprised."
"Astonished," Fion assured me. She had finished hugging my brother, and now she perched herself on my bed, legs crossed, and told him cheerfully, "You both stink, you know."
"Oh, we know," Rhys grinned. But he shucked off his old shirt and swapped it for a clean one from a duffel bag in the corner. Ollie deserved far more credit than he ever got: it was full of our clothes from Lle o Dristwch, and they smelled like they had been near some soap.
So I slipped free of my mate for just long enough to change the t-shirt which was still coated in blood that had belonged to Owen, Rhys, Sophie and myself. My jeans were exchanged for a pair of loose cargos. Leo averted his eyes politely, even though he had seen it all before.
"Much better," he whispered as I put my back against his chest again. I slapped his arm, but without too much force, because I'd been making my own eyes water. When I got a moment and a tub of water, I'd have to wash properly.
"So, what are you doing here?" I asked Fion, trying to say you're-pregnant-and-this-is-a-war-zone inconspicuously.
"Helping, duh," she replied.
Her eyes were asking me to drop it. Of course, Rhys and Leo still had no idea why she had stayed at Lle o Dristwch in the first place, so her continued absence would have set the warning bells to ringing. But I didn't think hiding her pregnancy was a good enough reason to march over here, especially since we'd be able to smell it on her in another week.
"Well, then," I said dryly. "Do you have any clue how we can beat the ferals in open combat?"
She sort of shrugged, but I could see the cogs turning into her head. And, like a chain reaction, my own rusted cogs ground into motion. Within a heartbeat, they were spinning of their own volition.
"Wait, don't answer that." I let out a few breaths of laughter, because it was suddenly so very obvious. "Because we don't have to win. We just have to kill them."
Fion frowned. "And how would we do that without fighting them?"
"I have a few ideas."